1636: Mission to the Mughals

by Eric Flint

  * * *

  John kissed his wife and pulled the Winchester free of its case. There was barely enough room in their cramped quarters for the two of them, and the barrel of the gun bumped the low ceiling as he slung it over one shoulder.

  “What’s going on, John?” Ilsa had been lying down, suffering from seasickness nearly as bad as Rodney.

  He grabbed the small ammo box his father had left lying around, the one labeled M25. “Pirates. Captain says they’re all slavers, too.”

  Ilsa blanched. “Oh, no, John.”

  He kissed her again. “Got to go.” Holding her at arms length, he added: “Keep your head down.”

  “I’ll join the others.”

  “Sounds good.” He left, squeezing past Gervais in the narrow gangway outside. The Frenchman was readying a coach-gun, sweat dripping from his round face. “On my life, they’ll not pass, Monsieur Ennis.”

  Not sure what to say to that, John just nodded and climbed out on deck.

  The sun beat on him as he considered his options. Setting up in the rigging would give him height and better viewing aspect on the targets, much like a deer stand in a tree, but the ropes and spars were swaying far more than the deck.

  Ricky Wiley and the rest of the boys boiled out behind him while he thought it through, all shotguns and pent-up aggression.

  He spat over the side and decided on the poop deck. “Ricky, do me a favor, get me…five or six of those winter blankets.”

  “Will do, J.D.”

  John climbed up, Rodney right behind him, and rejoined the captain and Bertram. Strand was still peering through his telescope.

  “Captain Strand, what range do their guns have?” he asked, trying to keep his mind off of what he was preparing to do.

  “Their cannon?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’ll probably give us a warning shot at about a hundred paces, reload, and if we don’t just give up, they’ll get to the business of trying to break us at around fifty.”

  The ship was swaying in the swell, not a great deal, but enough to pose a challenge at range. The fluyt was higher at the stern than the xebec was at the bow, so he’d still have a tiny bit of increased aspect on the targets.

  Ricky climbed into view, blankets over his shoulders.

  John thanked him and started setting up his rest.

  “What are you doing?” Bertram asked.

  “Helps to have a steady base to fire from.”

  “Oh. Do you think you can do much good?”

  He shrugged, hands busy setting up the improvised shooting bench. “I ain’t no Julie, but I can hold my own.”

  “Julie who?” Bertram asked, then answered his own question: “Oh, that Julie.”

  John handed his binoculars to Ricky. “I need you to call them as you see them, all right?”

  The younger man swallowed. “Never done this for real, J.D.”

  “Me neither, but if you see the round, tell me where it’s gone so I can adjust.”

  “Will do.”

  Using a bucket for his seat, John unslung the rifle and laid it across the improvised rest. “Rate of closure?”

  “No clock, but, uh, call it a bit more’n hundred yards a minute,” Rodney said. He even sounded sick.

  John raised the Winchester, removed the covers from the cheap but functional Bushnell 3x9 scope Poppa Ennis had bequeathed him and said, “Captain Strand, you sure these men are pirates?”

  “Certain and sure, Mr. Ennis. Nothing else they could be, not here, not behaving the way they are.”

  He shouldered the rifle and put his eye to the scope. “Okay.”

  * * *

  Caid Youssef el Inglizi returned the wolf-smiles of his crew with his own.

  And why not smile? Surely finding a fat merchant becalmed so close to Sallee is a sign that God favors our enterprise?

  As there wasn’t a good man among the crew, such signs were less wasteful than the usual methods he had to resort to in order to ensure his commands were followed. Always, the new men among the crew wanted to test him, wanted to see if the white Muslim was truly fit to lead the brotherhood.

  Such behavior had only become more common since he’d sent his son off to Grantville to plumb their secrets. The other captains all believed he was trying to place his son beyond their reach, or worse, questioned his conversion to Islam. They campaigned, in whispers, against him. Their short-sighted bigotry would eventually prove their undoing, but for now Youssef needed every cruise he undertook to result in easy profits and many slaves.

  The rowers of Quarter Moon were drawing them steadily closer to the foreign fluyt, as they had since sighting the vessel some hours ago. By his reckoning, less than half an hour remained until the sharks were fed the blood of unbelievers.

  Youssef el Inglizi, born in London as Joseph Bingley, shaded blue eyes with one hand, staring hard at the slack banner hanging from the mast of the taller vessel. Several pale faces at the stern of the ship stood staring at their approaching doom.

  “Hamburg?” he murmured.

  “Would explain why they are alone—no convoys like the Spaniards or English,” his first mate, Usem, said from beside him. “Though it’s strange they should be this close in to shore.”

  Youssef shrugged. “Not after the storms of last week, the calm that’s held since, and the current to drag them close.”

  Usem nodded, white turban sparkling with jewels.

  “Raise our banner, let them know who comes for them.”

  “Yes, Captain.” Usem gestured.

  Moments later a young sailor unfurled the banner of the Sallee Rovers from the mast, a gold man-in-the-moon on a red background.

  “Brothers, we will soon set upon the infidel and take his goods, his ship, and the lives of any who resist!”

  A crashing, ululating cheer greeted his words.

  “Man the guns and make ready, then!”

  Youssef and Usem joined the crews of the three cannon in the bow. The xebec, although not to the extent of a galley, had somewhat limited broadside armament because of the oars, and so mounted three of its thirteen guns in the bow. Because it lacked the banks of rowers of a true galley, it didn’t have the sheer speed of such a ship, either, allowing them to make only about four, perhaps five, knots. Still they closed the distance.

  A meaty thump, like a mallet striking flesh, came from the gun-captain of the starboard bow gun.

  A sharp crack reached his ears just as Youssef turned to look at his slowly slumping sailor.

  “Wha—” The man gurgled, crimson staining his lips.

  Something whistled through the air above Youssef. Another crack rolled across the water to him.

  Youssef ducked instinctively, the men about him doing the same.

  He saw it then, a tiny flash of light from one corner of the stern of the fluyt, like a gunshot, but without the cottony cloud of gun-smoke.

  Shooting at us, from there? That’s—another of his cannoneers reeled back, arm dangling by a thread of meat—impossible!

  Again the sharp cracking noise rolled across the waves.

  “Down!” Youssef shouted, unnecessarily. His men were already pushing tight behind the cannon, fighting for space.

  Another flash.

  Something rang off the cannon directly in front of him with a sound like hell’s own hammer, then went whistling through the air between him and Usem.

  Merciful Allah, how many guns does this man have?

  That evil crack again.

  The men were now leaning forward, close to the deck, as if bracing against a gale.

  Youssef raised his head, gauging the distance. Almost four hundred yards still separated the ships.

  “Faster!” he bellowed, “Row faster!”

  Usem rose up to repeat the captain’s order. He lost his life for it. The round took him in the jaw, sending teeth and bone rattling wetly across the deck behind his toppling corpse.

  “Merciful Allah!” someone screamed.

 
; “Faster!” Youssef barked, the now-expected crack punctuating his order.

  The slaves responded at last, pulling harder at their oars. Slowly, the ship built speed. Several breaths passed without one of the horrible flashes, only the groan of wood on wood and the cries of the man who’d lost his arm. They were nearly three hundred yards out when the next flash appeared.

  A dimly visible red-orange light appeared at the end of the flash. Barely visible, it crossed the space between the two ships and sailed by well above the deck.

  This time, the crack of the gun was nearly drowned in the cheering of his crew.

  “Down, you fools!”

  A second dirty streak of light was sent their way, again appearing to have gone high. Another cheer from the men.

  “Closer!” he shouted.

  The crew shouted wordless aggression.

  Glad his men were less afraid of the strange weapon than he was, Youssef looked up to offer a silent prayer of thanksgiving. It was then that he saw a tiny curl of smoke rising from the furled mainsail.

  As he stared, another of the burning things struck the furled sail along the spar just port of the mast. It went in and didn’t exit. Colored smoke began seeping from the hole as the noise of the shot followed the results across the water.

  “Water the sail!” Youssef’s shouted order held more of an edge of panic to it than he wished.

  Nearly all the crew looked up and saw the reason for the order. A collective groan went through them.

  Hassan, youngest of the brotherhood and the quickest climber among them, stood to his duty and grabbed the bucket line. In moments he was straddling the spar. He dragged the first of the buckets up and started to pour it over the growing smoky stretch of sail.

  The next red-orange streak ended in Hassan’s ribs. The boy shrieked, overbalanced, and fell. Even striking the deck from such a height did not end the pain for poor Hassan, who lay writhing, as if the thing that struck him continued to burn inside his flesh.

  The crew moaned. Hassan was well liked.

  Youssef stepped across the boy, who lay twitching like a wounded scorpion, broken limbs flailing.

  Youssef’s sword hissed from its sheath. A small mercy.

  * * *

  Why stop shooting? Bertram wondered, looking from the still-advancing pirate ship to John.

  The up-timer looked pale, and no longer had his eye to the shooting telescope attached to his rifle, instead staring at the wooden rail inches from his face.

  “Jesus, John,” Ricky said. His voice cracked.

  “I know. Fuck me, but I know,” John breathed.

  “Just a kid, John.”

  “I wasn’t aiming at him!”

  “They’re turning,” Captain Strand said.

  “What?” Bertram heard himself ask.

  “They’re turning,” Strand repeated, relief evident in his voice. “Heading for port.”

  John climbed to his feet. He left the rifle where it lay.

  Strand grabbed the younger man by the shoulder and looked down at Ricky, addressing them both: “John, Ricky, regardless of the difference between whatever you meant to do and what happened, it was them who came after us. They would have enslaved your women and you, given half a chance.”

  “Don’t make it right, Captain.”

  Strand released him. “But we live to make better choices.”

  “And remember,” John said, climbing out of view.

  Chapter 6

  Surat

  July 1634

  The steady rain pounding the decks did nothing to cool the heated discussion the captain of the Graça de São João was having with one of Surat’s many tax farmers as Salim climbed on deck.

  Thankfully, neither man paid him any attention. A man with just a few parcels was not worthy of attention from grasping tax officials and he’d long since paid his passage to the captain.

  Salim sent a wave the first mate’s way and walked from the ship.

  Despite the rain, the docks were active, slaves and their overseers managing the loading and unloading of several vessels. All but the Graça de São João were from ports on the Indian Ocean, most here to trade in horses, indigo, spices, saltpeter, and slaves. One ship, Mughal-built, was returning from Hajj, pilgrims forming a knot of the faithful as they navigated the waterfront.

  Happy to be ashore, Salim took a deep breath. Even through the rain, the scent of spices from East Africa and Southern India warred with the odors of river, tar and tide. While not from Gujurat, it was still a homecoming of sorts. He had done much in Gujurat in the first years he’d come down from the Khyber. It was a walk of a few minutes to the English factory complex.

  Wishing to avoid any entanglements with people who might not remember him fondly, Salim found a sheltered spot to observe the gate. It was nearly sunset when he saw the man he’d been waiting for.

  “Dhanji Das!” he called, angling to intercept the painfully thin men bearing Dhanji’s litter.

  A flick of the fly-whisk he held indicated Dhanji had heard him, but the heavyset man did not order his bearers to stop, probably thinking Salim some kind of petitioner.

  Which I suppose I am, all things considered.

  He easily overtook the party, spoke from beside the lead bearer, “Dhanji Das, I am Salim Gadh Visa Yilmaz.”

  “Salim?”

  “Salim, friend to your brother, Jadu, in Ahmedabad. He introduced us four years ago—”

  Dhanji spoke over him, waving the whisk at an invisible fly. “I’m afraid I don’t know—”

  “—after I saved him from slavery or death,” Salim finished. The Das family business took advantage of the Englishmen’s disdain for learning the local languages: one cousin would range ahead of an English Company trader—whose translator was invariably another cousin—and buy up all the indigo or textiles for sale in a given market, then make a tidy profit selling it at a mark-up to the English. It was on one such trip that bandits had come across Jadu Das with a hundred fardles of indigo he planned to sell to the English. They’d come across him, beat him senseless, and staked him out to die.

  At the time, Salim had been with a band hired by the governor of Gujurat to put a stop to the depredations of that very group of bandits. Setting upon them at night, the governor’s men had killed the bandits to a man.

  After the skirmish, most of the governor’s men had thought to take Jadu’s goods for themselves and leave him staked where he was. Salim had forbidden it. A blood-drenched argument had ensued.

  Jadu knew what was owed. It remained to be seen whether Dhanji did.

  “Oh, that Salim!” Dhanji said, rapping ringed fingers against the litter frame to bring his bearers to a stop. “We thought you dead on foreign shores!”

  You hoped it was so, that you might be free of obligation. Stifling the urge to say the words out loud, Salim said, “And yet here I stand.”

  A smile. “Yes, yes indeed.”

  “God is merciful.”

  Hindu, Dhanji’s response was a graceful nod. A silence settled.

  Irritated that he had to remind Das exactly how much was owed, Salim tried again: “I trust trade with the English proceeds without difficulty?”

  A twist of fleshy lips. “It does, but let us not talk of such things here: please, come to my home. I will feed your belly while you fill my head with news of distant goings-on.”

  Salim checked the angle of the sun, just peeking from beneath the clouds. Some time remained before Maghrib. “How can I refuse such generosity? It will be my pleasure.”

  They spoke of inconsequential things on the way to Dhanji’s home, a large building, white-washed and thick-walled to keep the heat at bay. Salim complimented his host on it.

  A smile shone through the Gurjurati’s beard as he invited Salim to join him for fruit and refreshment.

  “I thank you. I must pray first, however.”

  “Of course.”

  Dhanji provided him water to cleanse himself and privacy for the performanc
e of Maghrib.

  Refreshed, Salim rejoined his host.

  “What news of the court, Dhanji Das?” Salim asked, plucking a date from the platter and biting into it.

  “Word is slow to reach us here in Surat, but the emperor remains at Agra.”

  “Still?”

  Dhanji nodded. “Jadu tells me the emperor personally oversees the building of Mumtaz Mahal’s tomb. It is an astounding project.”

  “For an astounding love,” Salim said, thinking of the “postcard” in his pack. He shook his head, “Jadu is in Agra, then?”

  “Yes, he assists the English factors there.”

  “Good news, then. Surely he prospers.”

  Dhanji smiled and thumped his belly. “He grows fat, like me.”

  “I wonder, have you heard any word of Mian Mir?”

  “In fact, I have: Mian Mir fell ill shortly after you departed for that strange place—what was it called?”

  “Grantville.”

  “Grantville. An odd name…” Dhanji said, clearly hopeful of some intelligence that might earn out.

  “Yes, it is. You were speaking of Mian Mir?”

  “Sorry, yes. He fell ill, and while he is better now, he has yet to recover his full strength.”

  “Is he still at Lahore?”

  “Yes. There is much doubt he will leave his residence again before he passes from this world.”

  “You seem concerned.”

  Dhanji shrugged. “Guru Mian Mir is a friend to all good men, regardless of faith. Few are the Hindus who do not know who it is who has stayed the hand of the conservatives at court,” Dhanji said.

  Salim nodded, relieved. Mian Mir’s agenda of religious tolerance was not always appreciated, even among Hindus, many of whom still saw Islam as the religion of the invader. Encouraged enough to bring the subject back to his purpose, Salim asked, “And your brother, did he tell you anything regarding me?”

  “He instructed me to render you any assistance you might need, whenever you might ask for it.”

  Salim nodded. “I do not need much: money for a mount and enough supplies to get to Agra.”

  “I have sufficient funds set aside for your needs.”

  “I will thank him upon my arrival in Agra and tell him how faithful his brother is to the promises he has made. Further, I will be sure to repay what is given.”